unheard: December 2012

Sunday 30 December 2012

Creating Block Font - 4th Batch of Design

In this batch of design, I've considered using block and squarish font to emphasise on the pressure of social voices. QUB font (refer to the picture below) is very close to the design direction that I'm exploring. However, some specific characters were not very well created, eg: D, I, N, T, Y, as they would be difficult to read when being placed in a phrase. Hence, I've tried to recreate a series of typeface using QUB font as reference.

Untitled typeface I created

With this typeface, I continued to design the other collaterals.

Poster/ Batch 4

Card (front)/ Batch 4

Card (back)/ Batch 4

Video No.1/ Batch 4

Video No.2/ Batch 4

Video No.3/ Batch 4

Video No.4/ Batch 4

Video No.5/ Batch 4

Video No.6/ Batch 4

Video No.7/ Batch 4

Video No.8/ Batch 4

Sculpture/ Batch 4

Artist Impression - Video No.1/ Batch 4

Artist Impression - Video No.4/ Batch 4

Artist Impression - Video No.5/ Batch 4

Artist Impression - Video No.7/ Batch 4

Saturday 29 December 2012

Exploring Types and Characters - 3rd Batch of Design

Regarding the second batch of visuals that I created, the feedback was they looked quite dated. The strokes that were applied were immature and the colour was too washed. I understand this was due to my lack of command in the technique of using Chinese calligraphy. Hence, the strokes did not contain the initial energy of the characters.

In my next attempt, I've used vector based technique to form all of the characters. I first explored on the word "heart" (心/ xin) using different vector strokes and shapes.

Next, I tried to design the text unheard,

poster design,

and video text design.

The final execution are as below:

Poster/ Batch 3

Video No.1/ Batch 3

Video No.2/ Batch 3

Video No.3/ Batch 3

Video No.4/ Batch 3

Video No.5/ Batch 3

Video No.6/ Batch 3

Video No.7/ Batch 3

The Ceramic Lesson

On 15th of December, I've met up with the ceramic artist, Ms. Samsiah Rahman. Samsiah is a passionate postgraduate student of UiTM ( (University Technology MARA) and she is currently doing her ceramic research in SIRIM (Government-funded R&D company). She also has some experiences in teaching ceramic. Our first meet up was to describe the concept and discussed some technical issues in using ceramic to make the balls. I'd put up 3 questions regarding my technical problems to Samsiah, and she replied with helpful answers:

1. How do I insert the voice mechanism into the sculpture?
Answer: The metal pieces will definitely melt during the firing process. If I'm planning to use rice or bean as the voice maker, I can easily insert them after the firing procedure as there will be a hole under the sculpture, enabling the air to release.

2. How can I control the weight of the sculpture?
Answer: The thickness of the sculpture's wall could be controlled while I'm moulding the shape.

3. Can ceramic be painted?
Answer: Basically ceramic should not be painted to maintain the value of ceramic artwork. Technically, ceramic can be painted using acrylic and protected by coating a layer of clear spray.

I am very fortunate to have Samsiah willing to teach and help me. 2 days after, I went to her faculty and she explained to me the process of making ceramic sculpture.

Samsiah is giving explanation on the press mould technique.

The method to form a rounded shape sculpture is press mould. The basic steps are as below:

1. Form a mould using plaster of paris.

2. Softly press stoneware clay into the mould.

3. Overturn the mould to remove the clay.
4. Repeat the step and combine both semi-sphere with "clay glue" to form a ball.

To understand the theory was not very difficult. Samsiah later proposed that I should have a working space so that she could give me step by step guidance in detailed. I could do the firing in UiTM workshop or in SIRIM. The largest problem is both suggestions are costly.

UiTM Ceramic Workshop - Working space rental: RM70/ hr
(Suggested to use 6 hours for Samsiah to teach me)
UiTM Firing Workshop - Ceramic firing: RM30/ hr
(Total hours needed are 12 hours)

In summary,
Space Rental: RM70 x 6 = RM420
Firing: RM30 x 12 = RM360
Total: RM780

Nevertheless, ceramic is the best material to form the sculpture due to it's texture and also considering the clarity of the sound created through the collision of the voice maker with the inner wall. As I'm working on a tight budget, after discussing with Alex, I would need to eliminate the idea of using ceramic but to continue exploring with hand-craft paper clay instead.

Samsiah did point out that the cracks on my previous sculpture was probably because the lack of moisture while moulding it. I should have applied a little amount of water on the paper clay. I'm also searching for air dry clay that could avoid from baking. I've found a new type of clay and just need some time to explore with it.

Air dry clay sold in D'clay (One Utama Shopping Mall)

Friday 14 December 2012

Gurus Found!

Just a short update on the network that I found to help me complete the execution of Unheard. Based on the agreed form of execution, there would be 4 areas of media to work with. They are,

Prints
Video
Ceramic/ Clay ball
Platform

Other than the prints and construction of visuals fell under my capability as a graphic designer, I need other expertises to assist me. Fortunately, I've got all of them agreed to help now:

Video: Multimedia Batch-mate, Yi Hou
Ceramic/ Clay ball: Ceramic artist, Samsiah
Platform: Props designer, Uncle Chee

Phew! Thanks to the blessings I've got their contacts now. Below is a picture of Samsiah's ceramic artwork which is in round shape. In the email, she also mentioned that she faced the same problem where her ceramic cracked. Perhaps she would share with me more when we meet up.

Hearing The Tone of Voice - 2nd Batch of Design

I've not updated my progress for a couple of week while I was spending time to explore at the visual identity of Voice Ball. This step was expanded from the previous group critique consisting of Alex and the classmates. In order to strengthen the visual, I strategise the steps by first identifying some elements that embedded in the Voice Ball concept.

Subject: Voice (Society/ Inner)
Characteristics: Volume (Loud/ Soft)
Responding senses: Hearing (Heard/ Unheard)

With this understanding, I replace the title Voice Ball as Unheard. The term unheard, instead of heard is used to emphasise the focus on the unheard inner voices. The visual would consists of the bilingual characters.

Although a logo is unnecessary for Unheard, I started exploring the visual by creating a logo to roughly work on the visual mood and visual concept.

The Chinese character, 聼 (ting/ hear) consists of a character 心 (xin/ heart). Extending the strokes of the character 聼 could form a boundary that isolates the heart. With this concept, it attempts to show that the heart (inner voice) is unheard. Using brush strokes that are drawn with heavy intensity and pointy edges, I was experimenting a technique that could convey a tone for the voices.

This visual concept is then expanded to apply as the poster and card design.

Poster/ Batch 2


Card (front)/ Batch 2

Card (back)/ Batch 2

Other than that, when I was working on unifying the visual representations to reflect on the theme, I realised that too many elements were implemented to represent social voices in the previous strategy. This conflict is echoed in the video as the storyline needs to have a comprehensive flow with a focused topic. Eliminating some of them would help in enhancing the visual identity. The elements I put into the video in the previous strategy was:

Sound
Equalizer
Big typography (Social Voices/ Inner Voices)
Commercials

In this attempt, I would remove the equalizer because overlapping information (text of different types of social voices) appeared in both the equalizer and commercial parts. With this, the visuals on the platform to place the balls would also be totally removed, remaining pure white colour to pull the visual focus back to the video and the balls.